The Pain of a Middle Child

IX

I slept a deep, relaxed sleep that night. But morning always came, along with the cover tossing of my mother.

"Wake up, Lyla!" she stole my covers, leaving me trembling from the sudden coolness. "It's seven!"

By seven, you mean 6:45. I thought. But I woke up, much to my mother's pleasure.

I quickly used the bathroom and went downstairs, my bare feet sticking to the mats on the stairs.

"Morning," I said to my dad, who was wobbling slightly, not quite awake yet. I sat down at the table, thankful that the sun wasn't blinding me.

_________

"Good morning class," my homeroom teacher, a tall, thin, and likeable teacher who was in her mid 20's, said brightly to us.

"Good morning," some of the class replied to her. Most of us, including me, didn't reply, we were too distracted by the person who was lurking at the door.

Knock Knock

"Ah, that must be our transferring student." she opened the door, revealing a girl with short hair and light skin. "Come in, come in," she ushered the newbie into our room and she stood beside our teacher, nervous as a bird under a cat's paw.

"Why don't you introduce yourself?" our teacher suggested, and the girl nodded.

"I-I'm," she stuttered, then cleared her throat. "I'm Cala Green and I transferred from a school in Gangwon."

"Why though?" someone asked.

Cala shrugged. "I dunno, I think it was something related to my father's work."

"Thank you, Cala, I prepared your seat over there," she pointed to the back, towards Liam, where there was an unoccupied seat.

I felt anger rise in me, planting the seed of my hatred to the newbie. Liam looked at me, shaking his head slightly, signaling that I should keep my temper in check and act normal.

Cala greeted Liam with a big smile and he nodded, completely poker-faced.

As much as I didn't want to notice, I kept looking behind my back to see Cala bombing Liam with questions like 'Which class is it next period?' 'Can I borrow your eraser?' or 'Which teacher do you like best?'.

I concentrated to keep my promise to hold in my anger and listened to the Korean teacher, who was droning on about Poems.

"-we have a test tomorrow, so be sure to go through your worksheets, class 1-10," she gathered up her things into her big yellow basket, and waited for the bell to ring.

The class started talking quietly, but stopped when our teacher gave us a dirty look. We waited for the bell in different ways; drawing, talking silently by writing on pieces of paper, or even reading a book, which was me.

Finally the bell rang, and the teacher, followed by the students, exited the classroom, leaving it very empty and quiet.

Liam came over to me and sat at the edge of my partner's desk. He looked around the classroom, a frown creasing his face. I placed my hand on his arm and pat him gently.

"What's wrong, babe?" I asked softly. His frown stayed fixed even when he looked down at me.

"Cala's a real pain. I mean, she literally asked me questions all through class! Worst thing was," he slouched, his elbows on his knees. "She didn't get caught, only I did." 

I messed up his hair, the way me liked me to and pulled out a pack of gummy worms from my pocket. He brightened up a little at the sight of them, and started to beg for them with his eyes.

I giggled. Looking back to him, I gave in and opened the packet. At the sound, almost all of the class that was still in the classroom turned to me, their eyes shooting lazers at the gummy worms in my hands.

Naturally, I ignored them as they crowded around me and gave Liam the longest gummy worm; the coke flavored one. He ripped it into two pieces and gave me one, and I chewed on it happily after mumbling my thanks to him.

The rest of the worms were handed out quickly, all gone in less than thirty seconds. The bell rang too, leading to my fellow students' running back to their seats before the thirty-second timer rang.

The rest of school was uneventful, minus the newbie's-Cala's- questions.

Seriously, where does she get all those questions from? Does she have a list inside her head?

I shook my head, dismissing the thought of the girl having an entire questioning site in her head, providing her with questions to ask 24/7.

Maybe she memorized questions to flirt with boys she liked.  That made sense, although she would've stopped with the questions when she saw that he and I were together.

Unless she was blind to detecting relationships except her own.

I tied my hair tighter to concentrate on my homework. But my mind was already wandering, fantasizing the day I would show my parents that I was the best of the three of us.

Then I'd be the only one in the spotlight, even though I wasn't the eldest, prettiest, cutest, first boy, or the youngest.

I would be the most successful. I'd make them proud, I'd outshine them all.

I wouldn't be ignored anymore.

Somewhere in my heart, something ached. I knew what it was, my old scar from back when I found out my days in the light was gone.

It still hurt to think about it. I had gone through a lot of things alone, harassment by my so-called friends, loneliness, trauma, and so much more that had scarred everything of me.